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Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities

Creating a culture of health through policies and programs where people live, work, learn, play, and worship.

Our Work

Our research focuses on proven strategies of facilitating changes, from the individual level to system-wide policies, to support healthy behaviors, increase access to healthy foods and physical activity, and reduce risk factors that contribute to chronic disease.

Social Ecological Model: 1) Public policy 2) Community t3) Organizational 4) Interpersonal 5) Individual

Utilizing both the听听(Bronfenbrenner, 1977) and听听(Kumanyika, 2019), our work takes place across multi-sector settings such as schools, corner stores, supermarkets, and faith-based communities. We seek to develop community engagement strategies that will result in a community-driven approach to creating a culture of health tailored to the needs and desires of the residents.

Our goal is to examine and affect the different levels of influence that can improve the health and food environment, leading to improved health outcomes and increased resources and capacity in vulnerable communities.

Through authentic community engagement, we address the needs of the individual and community within the social, economic, and cultural contexts where people live, work, learn, and worship to ensure health for all.

The Current Landscape

In the District of Columbia, as well as across the country, where one lives has a significant impact on the opportunities to live a long and healthful life. We鈥檝e often heard the statement 鈥淵our zip code may be more important than your genetic code for health.鈥

Our work is focused in Wards 7 and 8 in Washington, DC, where residents face higher rates of health disparities across many health markers. The local realities and community context must be at the heart of community-led action and transformation that will achieve the strongest and most sustainable impact.

News & Notes

  • April 2024 鈥 The Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities lab's $2.8 million grant from Novo Nordisk to address food insecurity in DC and support local Black farmers was featured in a听.
  • February 2023 鈥 Watch the 3-mintue video on听Faithfully Fit's work in the community:听"."
  • October 2022 鈥撎Ayanna听Wells, Robin听McClave, Zoe Smith, Hugo van Dyke, and Dr. Anastasia听M.听Snelling completed the 6th听补苍苍耻补濒听听.听DC Central Kitchen鈥檚听听program works toward improving access to fruits and vegetables for communities that have limited food stores available. Through increased access and food and nutrition knowledge, improved consumption of healthful foods can lead to a decrease in chronic disease. The evaluation includes an analysis of the performance of corner stores who participate in selling fresh produce and gathering feedback from store customers to identify barriers听and facilitators for purchasing fresh听produce听at听these听corner听stores.
  • Sept 2022:听Ayanna听Wells, Robin听McClave, Dr. Elizabeth听W.听Cotter, Tom听Pruski, Deborah听Nix, and Dr. Anastasia听M.听Snelling published the results of capacity building strategies and formative assessments completed among the five faith-based organizations (FBO) participating in Faithfully Fitin the听Faithfully Fit is 4-year program funded wholly, or in part, by the Government of the District of Columbia, the Department of Health, Community Health Administration and seeks听build听a culture of health and wellness, improve health literacy, and prevent听obesity in adults FBOs in Wards 7 & 8.
  • August 2022:听Dr. Melissa Hawkins, Dr. Stacey Snelling, Robin McClave and DC community members published their qualitative, community-engaged project examining the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food access and health in the journal听.听This project was supported by the Luce Foundation and Mellon Foundation part of the AUHumanities Truck fellowship program. Listen to听interviews and learn more about the .
  • July 2022:The听Healthy Schoolhouse 2.0 team, including MS Data Science student Mergentevne Narangerel, Dr. Melissa Hawkins, Dr. Sarah Irvine Belson, Robin McClave, and Dr. Stacey Snelling, presented at the virtual portion of听听July 21-23. The poster titled 鈥Examining the relationship between job stress, self-efficacy and personal health among elementary school teachers in Washington, D.C.: Empowering teachers through professional development鈥 identifies that in order to empower teachers to manage workplace stress to protect and maintain a robust teacher workforce, it is imperative to offer support for professional learning about health.听

  • June 2022:The Healthy Schoolhouse 2.0 team published a听听linking Kumanyika鈥檚 鈥淕etting to Equity in Obesity Prevention鈥 framework to the holistic approach and strategies utilized in Healthy Schoolhouse 2.0 to address childhood obesity and advance health equity.

Healthy Schools

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Healthy Communities

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